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Sam Harris Doesn’t Get Better In Context

By Chris Hall
October 13, 2014
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I think that Friendly Atheist would benefit vastly if they just dropped Terry Firma.
 Every time I see something that really makes me cringe on that blog, it’s got his byline on it. Today, Terry’s trying to defend Sam Harris using the “out of context” argument. That can certainly be a valid argument, but it’s also something that a lot of people use as a weasel excuse when someone calls them on saying something particularly stupid and appalling. In Harris’s case, he got called on saying something appalling when this image started getting passed around Twitter:

Head shot of Sam Harris with quote: "Some beliefs are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them."Terry thinks that the use of that one line to represent Harris’s views is a dishonest smear. But frankly, it doesn’t sound any better when you place it in context. Here’s what Harris himself considers to the be the proper context. From pages 52-53 of his book The End of Faith:

The power that belief has over our emotional lives appears to be total. For every emotion that you are capable of feeling, there is surely a belief that could invoke it in a matter of moments. Consider the following proposition:

Your daughter is being slowly tortured in an English jail.

What is it that stands between you and the absolute panic that such a proposition would loose in the mind and body of a person who believed it? Perhaps you do not have a daughter, or you know her to be safely at home, or you believe that English jailors are renowned for their congeniality. Whatever the reason, the door to belief has not yet swung upon its hinges.

The link between belief and behavior raises the stakes considerably. Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them. This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live. Certain beliefs place their adherents beyond the reach of every peaceful means of persuasion, while inspiring them to commit acts of extraordinary violence against others. There is, in fact, no talking to some people. If they cannot be captured, and they often cannot, otherwise tolerant people may be justified in killing them in self-defense. This is what the United States attempted in Afghanistan, and it is what we and other Western powers are bound to attempt, at an even greater cost to ourselves and to innocents abroad, elsewhere in the Muslim world. We will continue to spill blood in what is, at bottom, a war of ideas.

(Emphasis added)

It’s crap like this that made me instantly dislike Sam Harris. Of all the Four Horsemen, he was the only one that I instantly, irrevocably loathed. Dennett I found to be an amiable but well-meaning sort, Hitchens was problematic but could have witty and devastating insights when he wasn’t determined to be a total prick, and Dawkins seemed to be an intelligent and compassionate person with a sense of moral integrity. I could see certain problems with him even then, but thought that he had the moral integrity to challenge himself and find his way past them. That’s turned out not to be true.

But Harris, even in the early chapters of his first book, flaunted authoritarian and racist tendencies that just made me want to distance myself from him as quickly as possible. This is an excellent example of why.

Terry and Harris may think that context somehow changes the meaning of the line, but all it does is expound further on the original theme. Harris really does think that it’s perfectly ethical to kill people for what they think, not what they’ve done or are about to do.

Harris repeatedly finds himself using the “out of context” excuse, trying to explain that the words on the page don’t actually mean what they say. It’s been a theme in his career ever since he started to make a splash in the media. In this case, the only thing I can figure is that he expects that the original context means people that we see as “other.” By conjuring up the specter of ISIL/ISIS, he wants his readers to understand that he’s only in favor of killing people that we’ve already decided are okay to kill:

The flag of ISIL/ISIS

The larger context of this passage is a philosophical and psychological analysis of belief as an engine of behavior—and the link to behavior is the whole point of the discussion. Why would it be ethical to drop a bomb on the leaders of ISIS at this moment? Because of all the harm they’ve caused? No. Killing them will do nothing to alleviate that harm. It would be ethical to kill these men—once again, only if we couldn’t capture them—because of all the death and suffering they intend to cause in the future. Why do they intend this? Because of what they believe about infidels, apostates, women, paradise, prophecy, America, and so forth.

Notice how he’s changing the rules here: This doesn’t say the same thing as the original line. Here, the action that he’s advocating is only about ideas at the most abstract level. In practice, it’s about defending yourself or someone else against an imminent, physical threat, not an idea.

Sam Harris can rest assured that although I think he’s an asshole with dangerous ideas, I’m not going to advocate killing him for them. It’s too bad that he can’t write clearly enough to reassure other people of the same thing.

-30-

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Filed Under: Atheism, Featured, Politics Tagged With: authoritarian, racism, Sam-Harris, Terry Firma

Listening to Anger: Two Good Responses to JT Eberhard and Atheist Racism

By Chris Hall
August 26, 2013
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I can’t even say how deeply disappointed I am in JT Eberhard’s recent behavior on the subject of racism. But even more, I’m disappointed in the failure of the atheist community to address it better.

Bria Crutchfield

Bria Crutchfield

Actually, some prominent atheists have addressed it very well: Jen McCreight and Greta Christina articulated the problems with JT’s comments about Bria Crutchfield and his defense of those comments beautifully. The fact that Jen, a white feminist, was one of the first people to speak up gave me some initial optimism; when white people create a mess, white people should be first on the scene to clean it up. It should not constantly be up to people of color to explain what’s so fucked up about racism. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Atheism, Politics, Racism Tagged With: Atheism, JT Eberhard, racism

To Maryam Namazie and Taslima Nasrin: No, You Are Not Whores

By Chris Hall
June 30, 2013
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Atheist Sex Work SymbolAs much as I value what Freethought Blogs brings to the atheist community in discussing social justice, I think that Maryam Namazie and Taslima Nasrin have seriously fucked up with this post, and really need to be called out for it.1

[Read more…]


  1. I left the following comment on Maryam’s post:
    I’m sorry, but I really object to this. If you’re not going to support real whores, then don’t appropriate their identity as your own. So far, FTB hasn’t been very vocal in supporting the rights of sex workers to do their jobs safely, legally, and without stigma. Taslima in particular has an extremely bad history on the topic, having equated prostitution with slavery and insulted actual sex work activists like Maggie Mayhem in the process. To my knowledge, she’s never apologized for either her treatment of Maggie in particular, or of her abuse of sex work activists. And yet, she’s willing to adapt that identity for the purpose of making a statement.

    In addition to our issues with misogyny and racism, it’s time for the atheists to start dealing with whorephobia in the community. Silencing women and men who do sex work, then grabbing their identities for your own use is in no way progressive or just. ↩

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Filed Under: Atheism, Sex Work Tagged With: Sex Work, sexuality, social justice

How to Make Women’s Bodies Disappear, Pt 1: No Women in the Holocaust

By Chris Hall
April 4, 2013
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The censored photograph of Polish Jews surrendering to Nazis after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in May, 1943.

The censored photograph of Polish Jews surrendering to Nazis after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in May, 1943.

The injunction to “never forget” the Holocaust apparently doesn’t apply to the women who died, at least not as far as the Haredi newspaper Bakehillah is concerned. When the newspaper ran an iconic photo of Polish Jews being rounded up after the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, they blurred out the face of Matilda Goldfinger and her daughter Henka for reasons of “modesty.”

Ynet reported that the Haredi newspaper “Bakehillah” (In the community) censored the face of Matilda Goldfinger, the woman who appears to the left of the little boy wearing a yellow star with his hands raised in the iconic photo documenting the final liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto in May 1943, following the Jewish uprising there that began on the first night of Passover that year. Goldfinger’s daughter Henka (Hannah) was killed moments after the photograph was taken….

In response to inquiries from Ynet, Avraham Dov Greenboim, editor of “Bakehillah,” said the blurring of the woman’s face was appropriate, given that the article was focused on the little boy. “In addition, we honor the memory of victims of the Holocaust, and we also respect our readers and only put in front of them what they need and want to see,” he said. The paper, along with other Haredi publications, operate under the watchful eye of a “spiritual commission” that ensures “modesty.”

[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Atheism, Feminism, Gender, Religion Tagged With: Atheism, censorship, holocaust, judaism, rape culture

Sign Adam Lee’s Petition, Expand Atheism

By Chris Hall
January 14, 2013
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Ayn Rand picture with signature

Ayn Rand: The woman who made it hip to be a selfish asshole.

Here’s words you won’t see me write (or hear me say) very often: sign this online petition. Generally, I think that online petitions and surveys are naught but meaningless wankery, but this one I think can do some good. One of the problems I have with online petitions is that they seem to take on Grand, Important Problems by allowing you to do nothing more than click a link. Adam Lee’s petition, on the other hand, is very specific about who it’s talking to, and what it’s talking about:

We support making the atheist movement more diverse and inclusive. It’s long been clear that the skeptical movement has a preponderance of white men. While we don’t disdain their participation, we believe skepticism is valuable and important to people in all walks of life, and in accordance with that principle, we consider it vital to have a movement that reflects the demographics of the society we live in. If our community continues to be dominated by white men, it will become increasingly out-of-touch and irrelevant as Western society becomes increasingly multiracial and multicultural and as non-Western countries gain economic and cultural power.

To that end, we urge the atheist and skeptical organizations to make a conscious commitment to diversity: to intentionally reach out to people of all ages, genders and ethnic backgrounds to speak at our conventions, to serve on our boards of directors, and to be the public faces and representatives of skepticism. We believe that there are talented, dedicated and eminently qualified people of every gender and every race, and that seeking them out will strengthen our movement and broaden its appeal.

[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Atheism, Feminism, Politics Tagged With: Atheism, feminism, godlessness, justice, misogyny, racism

Faith No More, Pt. 2: Genocide is Not Justice

By Chris Hall
December 31, 2012
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If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can’t be taken on its own merits. It is intellectual bankruptcy. With faith, you don’t have to put any work into proving your case. You can “just believe.” —Dan Barker, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist

Blind Faith

Read Faith No More Part 1

The extent to which faith compels progressive believers to blind themselves injustice so they can pretend their own ethics are backed up by divine authority is illustrated beautifully by Nahida herself, in the article that originally started my Twitter war:

[Nahida] interprets the condemnation of Sodom through a pro-queer, feminist lens as well: “My interpretation is that it was because they were rapists, not because the people they raped where of the same sex.” The book’s message, to her, is that “even when you don’t agree with someone’s decisions, you have no right to suppress the free will that was given to them by God.” Therefore, she says, Muslim law is inherently pro-choice, and inherently against imposing one’s religious beliefs on other people.

Whether the crime of Sodom was homosexuality, rape, or mere blasphemy, there is no way to tell that story without showing up god as a malignant, unjust thug. Nahida’s supposedly pro-queer and feminist interpretation of Sodom and Gomorrah conveniently glides past the fact that according to the story, two entire cities were massacred by her god because of an attempted rape.

[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Atheism, Politics, Religion Tagged With: Atheism, feminism, Politics, Religion, social justice

Faith No More, Part 1: Why Religion is a Poor Tool for Justice

By Chris Hall
December 30, 2012
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As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles.—Bertrand Russell

I believe, without reservation, that secularism is a far superior way to build a fair and just society than religious or spiritual thinking, no matter how well-intentioned.

Faith No More: We Care A Lot (Album Cover)That catches some people by surprise. When you’re out and open about being an atheist, they naturally think that the religious people you’re against are the cartoonish fundamentalist preachers on TV, the middle eastern theocrats that spray women in the face with acid for some crime or another against “modesty,” or child raping priests. And it’s true; I am against all of those people with a feverish passion. What catches people by surprise though, is that I’m also critical of the nice, liberal theists, the ones that I mostly agree with on issues of queer rights, feminism, poverty, racism, the environment, and so on.

And it’s true that I’m not against progressive theists in the same way that I am the fundamentalists. They are largely tolerant and decent people, and we can work together, at least in the short term. But in the long term, I think that using faith as a foundation for social justice is rot at the heart of the apple. What someone believes is important in determining what kind of person they are, but why they believe it is just as important, if not more so.

This has been sitting in my brain for a long time; it’s something that I wrestle with a lot, because criticizing religious progressives in some ways feels like kicking puppies. They are, after all, the good guys, as far as I’m concerned. I want more people in our society who support the rights of queers and women, who want people to have free medical care and free speech, and who are willing to stand up against poverty and racism.

But ultimately, I think that we’re a lot more likely to get those things if we stop trying to justify through the will of spirits and deities and prophets, and talk instead about the needs of ourselves and our communities, right here in the real world. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Atheism, Politics, Religion Tagged With: Atheism, feminism, Politics, Religion, social justice

The First Amendment: Christians Only

By Chris Hall
July 24, 2011
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Ed Brayton calls this quote by Bryan Fischer, the notoriously vicious Director of Issue Analysis at the American Family Association, “The Dumbest Thing Ever Said.” I don’t know if I quite go for that: it’s got some pretty stiff competition. The Reagan Administration alone provides piles and piles of political bullshit, and that only takes us up to 1988. Then you have to sift through another eight years of the George H.W. Bush years (starring Dan Quayle!), the crazed, drooling anti-Clinton paranoia of the eight years after that, and then finally the Shrub years, which may have triggered some tonic-clonic seizures as a result of all the facepalming I did in that time. Yes, the last thirty years of political culture have been heavy on the stupid, not to mention the sheer horrific. Fischer’s essay, in which he argues that Muslims—and by extension all non-Christian—have no First Amendment rights really falls more properly into that second category. The really horrifying thing is how used to hearing this sort of thing I’ve become.

[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Atheism, Politics, Religious Right Tagged With: christianity, Religion

Billboarding for God(lessness)

By Chris Hall
February 7, 2008
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To all the readers of this blog (all five of you): please send me large amounts of money so that I can make this video a reality.

[myspace]http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=27598703[/myspace]

Via Canadian Cynic and Greta Christina.

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Filed Under: Atheism Tagged With: Atheism, billboards, Humor

Fifty Ways to Say You're an Atheist

By Chris Hall
January 23, 2008
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At ScienceBlogs, grrrlscientist has put up a great list of the Top Fifty Atheist T-Shirt and Bumper Sticker Aphorisms, and unlike most lists like this, it really lives up to its name. Some of my faves:

1. Abstinence Makes the Church Grow Fondlers.

4. Too Stupid to Understand Science? Try Religion.

5. There’s A REASON Why Atheists Don’t Fly Planes Into Buildings

16. Jesus is Coming? Don’t Swallow That.

22. When the Rapture Comes, We’ll Get Our Country Back!

27. “Intelligent Design” Helping Stupid People Feel Smart Since 1987

28. I Found God Between The Sheets

32. If God Wanted People to Believe in Him, Then Why Did He Invent Logic?

33. Praying Is Politically Correct Schizophrenia

38. If we were made in his image, when why aren’t humans invisible too?

—————-

Now playing: The Dresden Dolls – Dirty Business

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Filed Under: Atheism, Humor Tagged With: Atheism, Humor

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